End of week 5 of trotting

More of the same this week really.  Week was made by passing my HGV test on Wednesday - yay!

Last week on the Winning Edge Gold - dont feel it's made any difference to him at all.  Full money back though so that's something.  Started back on TopSpec this weekend - just half rations for now.  Otherwise he is still on 1/3 scoop Bailey's Endurance Mix, big handful of Good Doer and 1.5scoops of Fast Fibre.

Schooling wise - he's finding it hard work.  I'm finding it hard to get him between leg and hand in the jump saddle.  Need to get my dressage saddle back and start riding in proper boots and spurs again.  Start getting him a bit sharper off the leg again.  Just booked first lesson for 5wks time.  He seems to find it easy to go deep, not so easy to come up in front but then we're not doing much to activate the hindlegs yet - just started doing some trot-walk-trot transitions but he needs a lot more to get him working through from behind.  He is being fairly soft in the hand though so that's something.

Hacking - made the mistake of going up the ranges with Jo yesterday.  Unexploded bomb that very nearly exploded.  Not so bad on the way across the top track, few little leaps and mini bucks but nothing major.  The further we went the more I had the feeling that turning around wasn't going to go well.  Couldn't take him off the main track as knew if his feet touched heather he'd loose the plot so we went through some woods and back onto the main track but Sox knew we were on the way home and started jogging which set Monty off snorting and prancing which wound Sox up even more.  Monty started leaping and bucking and thank god Jo managed to keep hold of Sox and keep him back from me so we just walked the entire length of the long track back with occasional mini explosions.  Wont be repeating that in a hurry!

Hunted a new horse today.  Ex-NH racehorse.  Generally controllable but just wasn't too happy about being held near the back and occasionally planted and refused to go forwards then ran backwards, span, leapt and tanked off - that bit wasn't so fun!  Otherwise pretty good though and we did a bit of jumping on the last line which was great fun as not jumped for more than a month apart from one on Llewi at opening meet.

Last week of trotting this week - start canter after next weekend.  Pick up my horsebox next Saturday and hunting another unknown horse next Sunday.  All good fun!